1. Field of the Invention
This invention refers to protecting systems of coasts, breakwaters, slopes, dikes, sand dunes and similar, and more particular refers to improvements in self-locking blocks, components elements of protection structures against erosion, to the process of assembling said structure, as well as the resulting structure. Inventively, it is a purpose to afford a means destined to counteract the destructive action of external physical agents--wind, water, etc.--with respect to coasts, slopes, breakwaters, dikes and sand dunes.
The physical agents which attack and damage this type of coasts, are of two species: the internal ones, with the phenomenon of siphonage and cutting of slopes due to the presence of tangentials tensions; and the external ones, in which intervene the erosive action of wind, waves, rain, tides, and the combined action thereof.
Traditionally, in the case of coasts protection, rockfills of stone aggregates, and vertical walls of rock blocks, containment walls of reinforced concrete and vertical sheetpiles in their different types have been used.
In regions such as the Argentine mesopotamia and humid pampa, for example, where the grounds are erosible and deposits of natural stone aggregates do not exist (or at least with a low cost operation), the protection with metallic vertical sheetpiles made of concrete has been used generally, anchored by tensors with special anchorage weights.
The disadvantage of this methods consists in that, as they are vertical walls, the active and passive thrusts, of the solid matter should be balanced by efforts in the tensor, generally subjected to important corrosive attacks, or else the waves "wash" the fine particles dragging them through the openings between one sheetpile and another sheetpile.
Both phenomena or the simultaneous action of these reduce the useful life of the protection or forces the implementation of costly maintenances. Another great disadvantage of the known method, resides in it complexity and high cost of construction.
The protection of erodible coasts is a very important chapter of any hydraulic work, recovery of low lands or harbor structures. It is of importance in the first place due to the great safety which it should confer to the coast, and in the second place--specially in zones without natural stone aggregates--by its high cost of supply and execution.
In the case of protections with anchored metallic sheetpiles and/or concrete, furthermore to the previously mentioned problems, generally exists a great difficulty in their execution, reason by which it requires highly specialized personnel and the technique of implementing them is very specialized and generally costly. This fact is worsened by the lack of possibility of detecting hidden vices or faults in the construction once the work is finished.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Some known structures, supply a defensive structure based in blocks coupled between each other. Among these principles, for example, is the object of French Patent 1.265.140 which consists in blocks of a double T configuration, that allow the coupling of the different blocks in a locking reciprocal way, with two of its axes of possible relation aligned to each other--and that correspond to the virtual axes of length and width of the blocks--but lacking any kind of locking in a third sense, i.e. the transversal to the plane defined by said aligned axes. This makes that, for the action of the water, tides or waves, said conventional blocks, though they have a coupling that resists the traction of the assembling in the sense of the axes virtually aligned to the structure, i.e. according to the orthogonal axes of width and length, they are not resistant in the transversal sense to the plane defined by said aligned axes; therefore, in said senses and due to the action of the above mentioned effects, they and by displacing easily.
Should there be any doubt in this reference left, it would be enough to observe FIGS. 1 and 10 to establish that effectively nothing could prevent the disconnection of the same in this sense. All of which makes said patent of costly application and furthermore of relative low effectiveness.